Hello Ladies,



I have been rather busy earning a living recently, hence no postings.



Earning a living is rather difficult because I work from Chateau Portia and the male I share living space with is a demanding soul - so I have decided to rent a little lair of my own to do my work, keep up with my chums, entertain people with more money than sense and catch up with my sleep.  But, more of that later.



My decision to rent my little lair has been reinforced by the total inundation of workmen at Chateau Portia.  All my neighbours have decided to turn their houses into building sites and have been busily concreting over their front gardens - so not to be outdone, I have decided to increase the value of the ancestral seat by having a new bathroom and kitchen installed.  This was a wild and rash move as it has resulted in a stream of british workmen into my abode, with all that that entails.



The bathroom project started first.  We decided to employ a firm of bathroom specialists because I do not have the time, nor the inclination, to supervise a lot of workshy blokes on their teabreaks - so we employed the services of Goldfish Bathrooms to do the necessary.



Goldfish sent round a very nice bathroom designer and a surveyor who produced wonderful pictures of the intended finished product on his computer and both the male I share living space with and I were most impressed.



The male I share living space with is not a man who copes well with disruption and since the initial visit of the bathroom surveyor, has been in state of such incredible twitch that I have had the greatest difficulty retaining any form of sanity during the building works.



His twitch was further compounded by the delivery men - who parked their lorry in the middle of the road outside, enraging the neighbours and filled up our conservatory with all manner of bathroom fittings, tiles, pipes and suchlike.  Being quite used to this sort of stuff in other peoples' houses, I have managed to retain at least a semblance of sanity - at least until Handy Andy, the bathroom fitter, arrived.



Handy Andy arrived bright and early one morning and endeared himself to the locals by parking The Van across someone's drive.  He then proceeded to unload a remarkable amount of tools, equipment, sandwiches and his digtal radio.  He dumped this in the house and got to work.



Handy immediately decided to ruin my life by telling the male i share living space with that he personally could have done the bathroom job at half the price that Goldfish were charging - this moved the male from a state of twitch to near pychosis at the thought of the amount of money that he was spending.  Since then, Handy and the male have become firm friends and spend hours talking about the state of the government, young people and the world in general.  All sorts of interesting topics have been discussed - Handy's emotional history, his views on immigration, the European Union, the price of fish...in fact, anything BUT how to get the bathroom job finished.  On occasion I have had to break up the lovefest that seemed to have broken out between the male and Handy and caused outrage by expecting some actual work to be done.  The male was locked in the front room with the TV, the cat incarcerated in the back room and my office door resolutely closed.  Handy got the hint and got on with his work.  However, the man seemed to be unable to work without talking, so contented himself with wittering away to himself and singing along loudly to the easy listening radio station that his radio is permanently tuned to.



A few days into 'the job' we took delivery of the kitchen equipment.  The male decided to go out as he felt that this would be an overly stressful event for him, and I was left to earn a living, keep Handy's nose to the grindstone and deal with the delivery vehicle which was a 17 tonne lorry.  The imminent arrival of a 17 tonne lorry in my road is an event that requires the diplomatic skills of an experienced UN envoy.  I went round warning the neighbours the night before so that they would not be in a state of open revolt and I felt I did quite a good job of reaching a diplomatic solution to everyones' requirements.



The lorry arrives and, after holding up the traffic outside my house for about 10 minutes, managed to manoevre itself into a parking space, despite the blaring of horns, swearing and cussing of other road users.  Everything seemed to be going quite nicely until the driver of the vehicle managed to bang his head on the tail lift of the vehicle (don't ask me HOW, this is still a mystery).  The driver's mate dragged the bleeding and dazed driver into my house and I had to administer hot sweet tea and ask him how many fingers I was holding up.  Handy was nearly orgasmic with delight with this opportunity to leave the bathroom and come down to offer advice and encouragement all round (he also got a cup of tea out of it).  After about half an hour the driver decided he was fit enough to embark on the unloading job and they got to it and everything appeared to be going smoothly.



Unfortunately, at this point, William and his friend Martin decided to turn up.  As things were a bit quiet on the drainage front, they had surmised that it would be nice to come round and see if I had word of any good sites.  They picked their way past the unloading blokes then went uptstairs to the bathroom to tell Handy exactly what he was doing wrong.  Panic-stricken, I dragged the two of them out of the bathroom and parked them safely in the sun in the garden and gave them tea.  Handy, who can hear a kettle boiling from five miles away, came zooming down the stairs to join us and soon i had my brother, his mate and my workman ensconced in the garden, drinking tea and talking about 'jobs wot I have known' , 'bodges wot I have done' and where to find the cheapest Polish workmen.



Meanwhile I was keeping the garden party supplied with tea and keeping an eye on the still-bleeding driver to make sure he didnt fall over and start fitting and foaming at the mouth.  Once they had finished the job, they joined the others in the garden for tea and they all seemed very happy!



After half an hour I started doing a pretty good impersonation of a sheep dog and hounded the lorry blokes out of the door, Handy back to the bathroom and kept William and Martin firmly corraled in the garden.



About an hour later, I noticed that the lorry had not departed from my street.  The two blokes were sitting in the cab, smoking and talking and causing all manner of access problems to my neighbours who, as usual, were starting to get a bit restive.  I thought I had better go and see what was going on, so took my life in my own hands and wandered over to see what was happening.  They informed me that as the driver had banged his head, their employer had decided he was not safe to drive (quite right too!) and the employer was sending down a rescue party...from Birmingham!  Resisting their pleas for more tea, I had to do more diplomacy with the neighbours, explaining what was going on and disappear back into my house as quickly as possible to get on with earning a living to the soundtrack of Handy talking to himself and singing.



Things were just calming down, when there was a knock at the door.  Wearily i went to answer it and there was a man standing there.  Over his shoulder I could see a mastic lorry boiling away dangerously.  He asked me to move my car and Handy to move his van so that he could mastic my neighbour's drive.  By this point all I could do was nod dumbly and release a joyful Handy from the bathroom.  We found somewhere to put our vehicles, but after this disturbance it took about half an hour to get Handy back on the job.



After such a tiring day, Handy decided to knock off at 3pm and drove off in his van.  The lorry was still there and curtains were twitching.  The rescue party from Birmingham arrived at 5pm, just as the neighbours were all coming home - to find the street blocked yet again by a bunch of blokes discussing things, changing vehicles and filling in all manner of paperwork.



Finally, they all pushed off and I was ready to retire to a darkened room with a cold flannel over my face to recover.  Alas! it was not to be.  The male arrived home and demanded food. 'I have been out all day' he says 'I am tired'.  Funny that, when he is in all day supervising builders, he is too tired to cook or go to the takeaway - and when he is out all day, he is also too tired to cook.  I think we finally had a kebab - and I had a much needed glass of red wine.



As I write, the bathroom is almost finished and the kitchen men are due to arrive next week.  Handy is staying on to do a bit of decorating..I think because the male would miss his grumbling companion.  So the situation of complete disruption to my life continues - I will have two MORE lots of tea to make. One bright spot though.  When they rip out the kitchen, i won't have to cook!



Exhausted,



Portia.